


Breathe Shallow

by doublejoint



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29231364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: It has been two standard months since the last attempt on Padmé’s life was made. For them, that may be a record.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Sabé
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Breathe Shallow

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 5 of the February Ficlet Challenge: Disaster
> 
> brief violence/assassination attempt

It is Sabé’s turn to be queen today, and Padmé’s to be the bodyguard. It is Sabé’s turn to stand still and look symbolic, to say the right things and not even stifle a yawn through meetings when all eyes are on her placid face. It is Padmé’s turn to anticipate disaster before it is there, shake out the yards of fabric for poison pins, keep her fingers scant centimeters from the blasters tucked into the loose folds of her sleeves. 

It has been two standard months since the last attempt on Padmé’s life was made. For them, that may be a record. The longer it’s gone on, the more Sabé knows she cannot relax. She cannot grow complacent. Death lurks around every corner, in every touch, every outstretched hand and every quick movement that turns out to be a trick of the light or an arm lifted to cover a cough or sneeze. The cloth of the ceremonial gown is spotless, free of any hidden poisons. Sabé breathes just as tightly and scarcely as before.

The queen does not look at any of her handmaidens, but Sabé knows just where Padmé is, in Sabé’s place, third from the right. Her face is forward; her makeup is impeccable. Today, yet again, there is no attack.

* * *

The palace by night sparkles and gleams no less than by day. The jewels and precious metals, the panes of glass, and the marble floors shine just as bright under moonlight and lowered lamplight as under the sun. It is still fortified by guards, but it sounds less busy; the clip of rubber-soled boots on the floor is absent. The murmur of advisers, of layers of rustling clothes, has been silenced. 

When Sabé was young, she’d lived in Theed proper, in a small apartment with her parents and her brothers, until each of them had gone away to school. When all of this is over, she’ll probably go back--will she be able to sleep with the noise of the street, the creaking of the house, the sounds through the thin walls? It’s a stupid thing to worry about; she’s letting her guard down. She’s getting ahead of herself. 

She’s never talked about that with Padmé, really, but they haven’t talked about Padmé’s life before this much. The people they will, the people they will get to go back to being if they survive, have been left behind; they’re supposed to be irrelevant to this. There had always seemed something off-kilter about that to Sabé; she understands the necessity for it as well as anyone can, but there’s a difference between assuming a mask and becoming it. Maybe she’s just a kid who doesn’t know any better.

(They are all just kids when it’s convenient for the older politicians to have them be kids; otherwise they’re given all the responsibilities of adults and more expectations on top of that. Sabé shouldn’t complain. People live with far worse than this, but people live with far better, too.)

Padmé puts down her datapad. Her hair is coming undone; Sabé will need to comb it. She’ll need to have the comb scanned. She’ll need to take off her own makeup, and Padmé will help her despite her protests. 

(“My Lady,” she will say, and Padmé will say not to call her that, the way she does every night, as set in their ritual as taking off earrings and untying laces and looking in the mirror at their faces, nearly-identical before they remove their makeup, and not quite so much without it.

Padmé will kiss her, soft clean lips on soft clean lips, and they will be careful and quiet, and already looking at the mirror again when the droid returns with the comb, checked for poisons.)

“Sabé, you’re somewhere else.”

Sabé suppresses a yawn. “I’m sorry, My Lady. It is late.”

Padmé nods, accepting the excuse.

* * *

Sabé catches the vibroblade in her hand, by the end of the handle; the blade brushes against her finger but she’s turned it off before it hurts. The assailant has more weapons, probably, but the minute they’d seen his blade he’d been shot at with ten stun bolts. Most of them had missed, but one is enough and two is plenty.

Today, Sabé is a handmaiden; today she is the bodyguard; if it were Padmé--she would have caught the blade, but they would have been so angry with her for risking herself, their asset, and Sabé would have been angry, too. Because that should have been her job, and because it’s Padmé, but her palm is bleeding into her sleeve and she has still arranged herself into formation, flanking and protecting Queen Amidala. And Sabé is not angry, and no one is angry with Padmé, because they were lucky and Sabé did her job.

It is many hours later that her wound is scrubbed, the weapon submitted for inspection, the questions, long and winding, worse than the most complicated wig or the heaviest dress. She breathes tight as before; soon after an attack is every bit as dangerous as after a long period without one.

Padmé touches the bandage on Sabé’s palm, careful and light; Sabé can feel it through the layers of tape. She would like to hold Padmé’s hand, but they are still being watched, and they are still watching. They cannot afford to be lost in each other; they cannot afford to fall into routines tonight.

Padmé does not thank her. Why should she? Sabé is only doing her job.

* * *

Sabé can only see the scar when she looks for it in the bright light, the thin pale line the only reminder that this had happened, among the other attempts, among the days of standing still, at her place, or as the queen. She shakes her sleeve out and they cover both of her hands; her makeup is impeccable. She is a shadow, her hood over her face. No one could pick her out of the line of handmaidens, or say she was not any other. No one could say whether she was or wasn’t the queen that day.

(The other handmaidens could. She could. Padmé could. Padmé, by herself, is enough though.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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